Iron Maiden
by Pyrahus
Summary: The saying goes that the first day is the hardest and then it all fades.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Lin or LoK. I wish I were that brilliant!

* * *

She thought that maybe the first night would be the hardest.

Lying there on that walkway, feeling the wood grain beneath her faded cheek, she had stared blankly across the harbour, slumped.  
She was blind.

Unable to feel the metal around her, the stone around her, she internally screamed. She didn't have any of it, the solid, deep eternal grounding.

The proof that she was _alive_.

It was like someone had set her world into an unbearable lightness.

She didn't know how long she laid there, thoughts circling her like ravenous wolf-sharks waiting for her to die, to rip her apart, tears dripping out of unseeing eyes (someone had told her once that her eyes were like jade, like a stone, cold, a stone that bended like butter, smooth, malleable and unchanging even though her hair was now the color of granite, gritty, flaky, pulled apart at invisible seams when she felt for them in her bending yet unyielding when angled one way-).

When she finally struggled to her knees, she tried not to vomit in her fear, her horror and her anger.

It didn't work.

Her clothing that had brought her so much comfort in it's solidness, the metal that she could constantly feel her mother's touch in, the unique bending signature of Toph….

It was nothing than a dead weight that suffocated her. It no longer seemed to bend the way she moved anymore, felt heavier, felt sharper, blunter.

She couldn't remember how, but someway, she had pulled herself to her feet, every single step, chanting the names of those beautiful faces she had seen, the perfect family that were safe, safe, safe, safe, _safe_.

Meelo.  
Step.

Jinora.  
Step.

Ikki.  
Step.

Rohan.  
Step.

Pema.  
Step.

Tenzin.  
Step.

Meelo.  
Step.

Millions of times of committing them to her memory later, she looked up.  
It was her door.  
The flying white boar that she had so carefully etched into the door was still there.

The door was locked.

There was a dull jolt of anguish again when Lin realized she couldn't even open her door. She had always locked the mechanism inside with her bending with this easy flick of her wrist.

If she closed her eyes, she could feel it. The cold touch of the worn gear inside that had been used so many times she needed only a gentle nudge with her bending to turn that would interlock smoothly with another and _click_.

Somehow, even her own home rejected her.

In the end, she broke her own window.

The first day, was long.  
She had lain senseless across her bed, unable to find peace or comfort. She couldn't feel the comforting old metal of the springs within the mattress, the warm stone that was the wall of her home, the latches of her door, the metal of the faucets, the pipes that ran around her neighborhood, the footsteps of her neighbors walking about their homes.

The second day was even longer. Looking out her window and just concentrating, hoping, praying that she would feel the vibration of the footsteps she saw people take. Even with the shouting, it was silent.

But on the third, she heard the explosions, the screaming and she made her way to the door. Sight nor not, bending or not, herself or not, Lin was a Beifong, daughter of Toph, a former Chief of the Metal-bending police and she had faced worse things.

A masked man was not about to take a Beifong down to her knees so easily.

She found the key to her door, that had lain in the bottom of a box, never used and strung it up around her neck. Lin was not about to be refused from her own home again.  
As she strode down the street, she quickly began to mentally make plans. Usually she could count on several trusted men or women to execute these with but never can it be said that Lin was not innovative. She was the descendant from the most creative people in the world, adjusting for fewer numbers and bigger fish was easy.

Uncle Sokka had taught her a few passes with his blade when she was younger. She could probably pick those moves up again with practice.  
There was Old Man Burk who had once been a blacksmith and she remembered feeling the echoes of metal swords within his home when she had tea with him. She'd have a talk with him.  
Meilian had practiced archery in her spare time and was quite a prodigy. Besides, the quiet girl probably had an extra pair of arm guards that Lin could borrow.

Lin only faltered for a moment when she contemplated finding a watch maker to help her undo the intricate workings of her suit and help remove her armor.

No.

She would keep it on a little longer.

Rock ran through her veins, metal sheathed her flesh and she still had breathe in her lungs.

_Don't count me out yet. I've iron still._


End file.
